Gonna drop a positive review because this game is a vast improvement over previous titles (I've played them all since SR2010) and it low-key annoys me that it says "mixed" here since I'm having a lot of fun with it. The biggest positives that come to mind: - Game runs smoothly even when 4 major powers are going at it at the same time. - Map still looks cool. - AI runs economy pretty well once you tell it what you want. - UI is a million times better. - Naval AI actually sets up strike groups and puts aircraft on carriers. Super cool. But still I sometimes I see a lone US Navy carrier trolling around the coast of china with one plane on it lol. - Combat AI is way better even though it is still kind of lacking when it comes to actually using all of its units. It will charge forth smartly with its tanks, infantry, aircraft, supply vehicles and some other stuff but for some reason it always leaves almost all of its AAA/SAMs behind. I never really understood that because having those would make their offensives more successful, though at the same time it makes a player's attacks on where those units are staging costly and it basically forces you to ground your airforce in that whole area. So it evens out I suppose. - AI reacts to my attacks. If it sees I'm advancing to its capital it actually rushes units it has left there to defend it. I've actually been pushed back a few times by believing that the AI would kind of just remain mostly static like in older titles. - I cant comment on using battlegroups or the AI to manage my own units because I can never get it to work right. I prefer to put my units in formations, have them advance by formation so that they kind of stay together, then move them around as I see fit. All I let the AI do it pull back damaged units which is has always done well. - I love that I can save my game and then load as another country (more about why below). If we were able to do this before I am dumb and missed it. Now for some things I still think could be improved: - Diplomacy. I don't expect an intricate diplomatic system like on HOI or Crusader Kings or something but it's still disappointing to see basically two extremes: - In the World 2030 sandbox, all AI will unconditionally love all other AI (Including North and South Korea mutual love) but still almost all eventually hate you. - In the World in Crisis they will all hate each other enough to the point of declaring wars upon way more people at the same time than they can handle. It's usually Russia and China doing this. China will have ground its army to dust taking over Asia and, while going at it with India, decides it would be a good idea to also declare war on Korea. Just cause a country wants to declare war doesn't mean it should. Like if its forces are down to 25% of what they started with maybe they should chill out for awhile....Idk how this could be implemented but it would be nice it there were a way. Anyway I mitigated this by playing the World 2030 love fest and then loading up as a semi-random country to have it declare war on someone else for some made up reason in my head to create drama. This actually resulted in some fun outcomes....I made Iran declare war on Iraq and, after I switched back to the country I was playing, Turkey decided to join in on the Iraq beat down. Then Saudi Arabia jumped in the mix. Turned into a genuine Middle East crisis without the whole world declaring war on random countries so that was pretty cool. - Unit management still drives me crazy. The one big list of every single unit can be mind numbing. But that's probably my fault for not really getting too deep into setting up battlegroups yet.... - Once I take a territory I have to go manually repair every building that I damaged. This is probably intentional since repairing can be expensive but a repair all button would still be cool. Maybe at least "repair all of X type." Idk not really a big deal. Now for what I don't like at all - When you beat down an enemy and are approaching a military base, all the units that they have inside repairing wait until you are right on top of the barracks to deploy. This ALWAYS results in their immediate annihilation because they are freshly deployed and are immediately set upon by whatever you are throwing at them. Please put some kind of script that is like "if enemy ground forces approach to within X km of the base, deploy damaged units so they have a fighting chance." Like its fun wrecking an entire army but it's cheesy af blowing up 40 units (some of which arent THAT badly damaged anymore because they have had time to repair) in like 3 seconds. - I bought the game a week before it went on sale. Sucks to be me but I guess I'll get over it. That's about it. Overall I'm having fun with this game and I like looking on the forums and seeing the devs respond to feedback to make improvements so here is my review.
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